I Was Too Late
by midnightrose12206
Summary: Max and the Flock are looking for Fang after he's been taken. Instead of finding him, they are taken as well. Max is taken to Fang, but there is nothing she can do for him. Is she too late to save him? To save the Flock? To save herself? Companion story


It's been three months. Three damn months since they took Fang. We've been looking for him high and low but it was like he vanished into thin air. We went back to Europe to find the Itex branches that might still be running, but alll we found were abandoned buildings filled with vermin and filth. No trace of Fang or the bastards that took him.

We were all stressed and worried to the point of insomnia. But we never lost hope. We still searched and searched and searched. One thought was hovering on the fringe of our minds, thought we never spoke it out loud.

_Maybe he was dead._

No matter what I refused to think it.

This was Fang we're talking about. The one other person in the world who could be more stubborn than me. The one other person in the world who would fight hell itself to live.

He was alive. I knew he was. He was waiting for us.

_Just a little bit more. Fang, hang on! We're coming to get you!_

I silently hoped he would keep fighting until we found him. He had to. He is Fang. My Fang. The Flock need him back. I need him back. Being without him was like missing half of my heart or one of my wings. It was unimaginable.

We had to get him back. We had to.

* * *

"Wake up, Maximum." someone threw ice-cold water at me, shocking me awake.

I sputtered and shook wet hair out of my face. Then I glared at the asshole who did it. That was all I could do since they had we trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. My hands were bound behind my back with steel cables and bent at a hideously painful angle. I was slumped in a half-sitting position against a sterile, white wall. The rest of the Flock was like me, but still out cold.

"Who the hell are you?" I growled with hate. I could already guess who this was. it was the bastard who took Fang. I could recognize his kind from ten miles away.

White coat.

Sneering, shit-eating grin.

Slimy eyes.

Money and power bleeding from his pores.

I'd rather him bleeding. Period.

"Is that the way you greet your host, Maximum? Where are you manners?" he tsked at me patronizingly, his shit-eating grin never leaving his thin lips.

"Shove it where the sun doesn't shine. Tell me where Fang is! Now!" I struggled against my bonds. I only succeeded in making my wrists bleed from the friction of the steel binding them.

"So right down to business, huh?" he walked up to me and bent down to my level. I could smell the scent of death on his breath, it smelled like garlic. "How about I take you to see Fang?"

He grabbed my upper arm in a painful hold and yanked me up until I was on my feet. Then he pushed me ahead of him to the steel door. He reached around me and punched in a code to open the door. Then he roughly shoved me through and down a number of winding halls. I memorized every hall that we took, every twist and turn and doorway we walked through. Finally we stopped in front of another generic steel door. Against he reached around to punch in an access code.

He shoved me in to the room.

It was pitch black with a large sheet of glass taking up one whole wall of the room. Through the glass I could see another room with a large screen. I stood stoically, not asking why he took me here. I had a feeling I would find out soon.

Sure enough, the door to the room on the other side of the glass opened ... and Fang walked in.

"Fang!" I said. But he didn't seem to hear me.

The bastard behind me chuckled like it was some damn amusing. "This is one-way glass, Maximum. We can see and hear everything in that room but they can't see or hear us. Now shut up and enjoy the show."

That sent a chill up my spine.

_Enjoy the show?_

It was like he read my thoughts because he let out another chilling cackle. "Just shut up and watch."

I turned back to the glass. Fang was standing in the room with another man. The guy, who I knew must be his captor, was obviously an experiment. He looked like a messed up body builder who overloaded on steroids. Next to him, Fang looked like a skeleton. Fang was always slim, lanky but tall. Now, he looked grim. His eyes were sunken and his clothes were ripped so badly I could see the scars beneath them.

My poor Fang. I felt like screaming. They beat him, experimented on him, I knew they did. But they dd more than just that. He looked different. He was different.

His eyes, they used to shine with defiance but now they were so empty. They had broken him. I just felt it. All the way to my core I knew it. They had killed his spirit. Smashed it into the ground.

Dear God. Fang.

I was about to turn around and give the bastard behind me a piece of my mind when I heard my voice. It was kind of muted, but I could hear it coming from the room Fang was in. On the screen that had been blank was a scene. A forest scene. It was of the Flock. When I looked closely I saw that something was off.

I didn't recognize the forest. I always remember where we had rested because then I could never make the mistake of going to the same place twice. But I knew that I had never been there before. On the bottom corner of the screen I saw today's date and time. Now I knew that the video was fake.

_Why the hell are they showing Fang a fake video of us?_

I watched.

"You guys, I've decided to stop the search for Fang. It's pointless and we all know that he's dead." I heard myself say. I was shocked, but kept a careful mask on my feelings and kept watching. "There's no use in wasting energy and time on him anymore. Let's just move on, forget about it, alright?"

"You're right, Max." Angel said cheerfully. "Why don't we go somewhere warm? Let's fly to Hawaii!"

Gazzy whooped and punched his fist into the air. "Yeah! Surf, sun, and beach bunnies." he elbowed Iggy who laughed.

"Great minds think alike." Gazzy and Iggy high-fived and cackled.

"I can learn the hula dance!" Nudge chimed in. She clapped her hands excitedly. "Oh! Yay! When do we go?!"

I saw myself smile and felt like throwing up. "So it's decided, Hawaii we go, right Flock?"

"Yeah!"

By then I couldn't stand to watch anymore and looked at Fang. He was crying. He looked defeated and broken, even more than the first time I saw him. I wanted to scream and shout that it was all a lie, that none of it was true, that it was all made up, that I was right here! But I couldn't. He wouldn't hear me. He couldn't.

I felt myself cry. I felt so helpless.

Fang was just a few feet away from me and he couldn't see me. I was right next to him and all I could do was watch him break apart in front of my eyes. I couldn't only imagine the pain he was going through.

"You people are really fucked up." I whispered.

He heard me anyways and laughed. Then he led me out of the room and down more hallways. I didn't bother memorizing the way anymore. All I could see was Fang's face when he was watching the false video. It was like watching my heart being shredded right before my eyes.

He didn't have anymore hope. There wasn't a chance of him fighting back anymore. He didn't believe we were coming for him. Fang was gone.

The bastard behind me led me into another observation room with a glass wall identical to the one in the previous room. The room I was looking into now was totally concrete with no window or light to speak of. The glass must have had some kind of night vision sensors because I could see the basic outline of the room.

The the door opened and Fang walked in. His captor shoved him across the room where he landed in a heap of twisted limbs and blood. I heard him groan in pain. Then he pushed himself up until he was sitting with his back to a wall. He had his eyes closed.

I wanted to curse and kick down the glass wall separating me and him. But I couldn't. The bastard behind me was holding me still. All I could do was watch.

I hated it. I hated them so much. They had _broken _Fang. Broken him like a frigging toy! He was bruised and battered and bloody. I've never seen him look so bad. What really made my heart stop was when he reached to the heel of his boots and pulled out a knife. The knife I had given him. He opened his eyes and looked at it. I wasn't sure if he could see it or not but I knew what he was going to do with it.

"Fang. Fang! Fang!!! Don't do it! No! I'm right here, Fang! Please, don't do it!" I screamed and screamed, my tears making the words sound strangled and unclear. I struggled against the bastard's hold on me but nothing happened. He just laughed and tightened his grip on me.

"That's right. Enjoy the show, Maximum. This is the last time you're going to see Fang ... alive." he cackled dementedly.

I just kept crying and shouting until it hurt.

But I didn't tear my eyes away from Fang for a second.

_He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't. NO!_

"NO!" I screamed at the top of my lungs the moment he plunged the knife into his heart. I could feel the knife in mine.

He choked. Blood bubbled behind his lips and ran down his chin. Through his tattered shirt I could see blood welling up from the wound and running down his chest. He slumped onto his back. I could hear him dying. And I couldn't do anything about it. He was just there, so close and so far away.

I heard the last breath leave his body right before he died.

"I love you, Max."

And he was dead.

"NO! Fang!" I cried out. My legs gave out under me. I collapsed onto the floor.

"Do you want an encore, Maximum?" he pulled a hand-sized remote from his lab coat pocket and pointed it at the glass. Immediately the scene changed to the room I had been held in.

My eyes widened as I took in the scene.

The Flock was dead. All of them. Blood was everywhere. Splattered on the walls, pooling on the floor, smeared on the blank, pale faces of my dead family. They're eyes were all open with shock, blank and staring at me accusingly.

"No. NO. NO! You fucking bastards! Not them. Not them!" I couldn't believe it. My whole family. Dead. All of them, just dead. It wasn't possible, it wasn't.

"Oh yes, Maximum, them. All dead. Every single last one of them. And now it's you." he took out a gun and put it to my temple. "I'm glad you had the pleasure of seeing your family one last time before you died." he cocked the gun. I saw the faces of the Flock flash before my eyes. Angel. Gazzy. Iggy. Nudge. Fang. All dead. And so am I.

"Goodbye, Maximum Ride." and he pulled the trigger.

* * *

**I think I'm officially emo now because that was the most horrible piece I have ever written. I guess I just wanted to try my hand at sad endings, but gosh, that was sad.**

**I need chocolate. And this damn cold weather to be over. Cold weather and winter in general makes me emo and moody. Bleh!**

**Just waiting for the summer sun!**

**Just so many more months.**

**Off that topic now. How was it? horrible. depressing? I'm depressed. tell me wat cha think. No review is a bad review.  
**


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